RANDOM HANDSHAKES - ALI H. RADDAOUI

Monday, April 5, 2010

This may be a statement about our lithium culture where things seem to be over-determined in ways not always to our liking. Sometimes, we become the gadgetry we carry, and let our lives and our selves be driven by it. There is, however, no denying the fact that those machines can serve good purposes. This piece represents such an ambivalent position.

LITHIUM MEN


A man I know

always on the go
Carries a time machine on his wrist
It ticks and ticks and ticks and ticks
It's ticking its day away.
Before he succumbs to sleep,
He hears it tick.
Its lithium battery
Has a lifetime warranty.
The battery, though ostensibly
The heart of our lithium culture,
Is the only friend who's kept him company
For the past eighteen hundred
And thirty-three days.
Watch doctors have declared
The battery days numbered
And her cells nearly dead.
A man I know always on the go
Carries a time machine in his cells
No doubt so close, so dear, and so vital
To his heart.
It ticks and ticks and ticks and ticks
It's ticking his days away.
When he looks
At the unperturbed waters of the lake
He sees it tick and gets perturbed.
The lithium battery doctors could
Conceivably tell
How long it will tick.
Their lithium screens
Could principally declare
His years numbered
And her cells nearly dead.

Ali H. Raddaoui